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The appreciation of the U.S. dollar and depreciating currencies in Africa in 2015 makes it costlier to import manufactured goods to African countries. Quality Supermarkets in Kampala, Uganda, struggles to fill its shelves with imported packaged foods and manufactured goods. The lack of financing for $30 million in crude supplies leads to the closure of a refinery in Lusaka, Zambia, and long lines at gas stations. The Zambian currency kwacha has depreciated by 17% against the U.S. dollar in 2015. Uganda's currency the shilling, Angola's currency the kwanza, and Nigeria's currency the Naira, all depreciated in 2015. This means larger trade deficits to finance consumer imports or upgrade infrastructure. In Uganda this means delays in upgrades to power lines and transformers. In oil producing countries such as Angola and Nigeria, and oil producers at the early stage such as Uganda and Ghana, there is a double whammy with lower oil prices leading to lower revenues to finance costlier imports. This is likely to slow growth in Africa from about 5% in recent years to 3.7%, according to Capital Economics forecast. Countries in Africa that import oil will see lower import bill for oil, but that benefit eroded by a depreciating currency. South Africa sees benefit of lower oil prices offset by lower revenues from commodity exports of iron ore, and the higher cost of imports with a depreciating currency. ...

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The Guardian points out that Macron is making a political choice rather than an economic imperative with making workers work longer for pensions during a cost of living crisis. France's pension advisory council says that the annual 10 billion to 12 billion euro deficit for pensions was manageable in the context of total expenditure of 340 billion euros. It also predicted agradual return to breaking even by the mid 2030's. As much as 80% of people under 65 oppose the reform says the Guardian. Macron has a minority government and won with support from working class parties led by  Melenchon, and is in his second term, so it is not clear anymore why he has pursued this course of action.

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Britain's economy shrank by 0.5% in the last quarter of 2010, according to Office for National Statistics. Unemployment went up to 7.9% and 2.5 million jobless. Inflation up from 3.3% in the year to November, to 3.7% in December 2010. Mervyn King, governor of Bank of England, says inflation will go up to 4-5% in 2011. The austerity plan is only now beginning to go into effect and creates a difficult year. The VAT, a consumption tax, goes up to 20% from 17.5% on Jan 4th, and public spending cuts go into effect in April. With consumption depressed, higher investment and exports are the two areas supporting growth. There is a risk that the Bank of England will have to raise interest rates, as it left interest rates at 0.5% in December 2010. Under these conditions not much of a recovery can be expected in 2011-2012.

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Germany's DW.com says in this report- "However, economists have pointed out that the US benefits from having large trade imbalances with the rest of the world, as the dollar is used in most trade, and offers major tailwind effects to the US economy." Which economists one must ask? Most of these economists had turned their back on the working people in factories in America, on their wages turned into a downward spiral, on their jobs, their factories lost for three decades. Today the American people have a sense of the true cost of this colossal failure to protect American workers and small towns across America depending on manufacturing. The pandemic exposed the risks of supply chain shocks and inflation by overly concentrating manufacturing in China.  The US has 1 trillion in trade deficits each year and it is completing the destruction of manufacturing in the US. Half of this is with China as China exports through Vietnam and Mexico, third countries, in addition to 295 billion dollars of trade imbalance the US has with China. China, Mexico, Canada and Vietnam are the largest offenders. No country can long endure with such a loss of its manufacturing base. The US Navy itself is in danger without the manufacturing to compete with China that has taken up over 50% of shipbuilding, and soon will not be able to protect the free world if these types of economists and self serving German or other foreign interests drive a false narrative. Without the US Navy in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans no one is safe, not Germany, not the EU, not India or the rest of the world. ...

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The opposition of parties from the far-right in the Netherlands and France, and other parts of Europe, to austerity measures imposed by the EU under the leadership of Germany's Angela Merkel. Geert Wilders, leads this far right opposition in the Netherlands and Marie Le Pen in France. The far right parties are gaining influence with high unemployment and economic recession in Europe, making spending cuts painful for pensioners, and the middle class.

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The New York Times reports that comments from Obama administration officials describe an alarming loss of trust and confidence between China and the USA over the last two years. David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy program at George Washington University, says the administration had hoped to work with China on major challenges like climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and a new global economic order. China, he says, has failed to step up and play that role. He describes the Chinese as responding as an increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested truculent, hyper-nationalist, and powerful country. Jeffrey Baker, a key China policy adviser in the White House, says China's responses reflected a sense in Beijing that China was a rising power and the USA a declining power, especially after the strong rebound of the Chinese economy after the 2008 crisis. The administration is determined to counteract that impression. Other factors complicate things. China is facing a transition to a new leadership in the next year. There are differences within the Chinese Communist party leadership ranks about the direction China should take. Trade and currency issues have come to the point where American public opinion is shifting greatly, with educated professionals changing their views on trade and currency matters. See the recent WSJ/NBC September 2010 poll on world trade, reported by Murray and Belkin in WSJ, Oct 2, 2010. The Obama administration cannot ignore the deep concerns of the American people on these issues. The House overwhelmingly voted in September to threaten China with tariffs on its exports if the Chinese currency, the renminbi, is not allowed to appreciate significantly enough (experts estimate that it is overvalued by 20%). It is not clear whether the Administration's rhetoric on this issue is to assuage public opinion in a business as usual manner, or expected to achieve substantative results to rebalance world trade. The G-20 summit in S. Korea leaves this change for well into the future- China with current account surplus of 5.8% of GDP in 2009 is expected to lower this to 4% by 2015. With the high jobless rate in the US and the large and rising current account deficit, the United States may have reached a juncture where this cannot be put off well into the future years. Other issues, the different foreign policy objectives, and differing perceptions of China and the US of each other, the relationship with US allies in the region, may create additional tensions. These tensions may be navigated by governments of both countries, but the shift in American public opinion on trade, currency and jobs issues will require tangible and real change. As trade tensions will only increase in the next two years with the lack of fiscal stimulus on the jobs front, and no significant change in jobs expected from the Fed's purchase af additional Treasury debt, and a sense that the mutual benefit in the trade relationship with China has been lost to America's serious detriment. China's position may be perceived as stronger than it really is from the faster rebound from the 2008 crisis, and may in reality not be as Jeffrey Baker sees it. As David Barboza has reported in the New York Times, and experts have pointed out, the huge amount of lending encouraged by the government has accentuated weaknesses in the Chinese economy. A significant amount has gone into real estate speculation and will only increase the bad loans on the books of China's banks. This happens at the very time that growth is expected to slow down and make it harder to absorb the bad loans, as was done in the past. ...

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Argentina president Mauricio Macri wins 40% of the vote, losing to the Peronist candidate Alberto Fernandez with 48% of the vote. The Peronists, a socialist party, also won in Buenos Aires province elections for governor.. The shift from centre right to the socialist party occurs as the country is in deep financial crisis with about 50% inflation. The Argentine currency, the peso falling in a few years since 2015 from 10 to the dollar to 60 to the dollar, leading to high inflation and hurting Argentines with rapidly falling purchasing power of income. Argentines rejected austerity policies of Macri and the free market policies pursued under Macri failed. This was aggravated with lack of prudent management of finances and overborrowing using dollar denominated bonds reaching $115 billion in bonds debt by 2019. Me. Macri inherited a budget deficit from Ms. Kirchner in 2015. The economy was overly dependent on a temporary boom in commodity prices for soyabeans as a result of demand from China. A weather related crisis led to a decline in agricultural exports in 2017-2018. Yet the budget deficit was allowed to grow and the foreign debt was financed with foreign currency denominated bonds to the point where Argentina could now default on $115 billion in foreign currency denominated  bonds. Overly dependent on uncertain foreign interest in Argentine bonds, Argentine agricultural commodities exports at high prices, uncertain foreign investment, hurt Argentina. Drought conditions in 2018 hurt export revenues. This required very prudent and careful management of finances which Mr. Macri failed to provide. Turning to the IMF for a $57 billion loan in May 2018, in just 3 years of his administration, and after Argentina took years following the crisis of 2003 to settle foreign debts, showed a failure and mismanagement of huge proportions. ...

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What is the role of a small wine importer of European wines who supplies local stores in NY city, and other similar business, in a issue of $1 trillion trade imbalances that destroyed American manufacturing and millions of jobs as large US business corporations shipped manufacturing to China? The trade deficit with China has led to loss of 3.8 million jobs, 75% of them or 2.9 million in manufacturing.  Go back to 1990 and Beijing was a city of bicycles not cars. If Beijing shifted to a open economy and simply imported products from the US and Europe as it had done since 1700 it would have remained a backward agricultural economy. It took 20 years of focused effort after 2000 for China with US technological assistance to excel in manufacturing, as the US had done after 1920. Can or cannot the US excel in Manufacturing with its own focused effort and restore jobs and decent wages to the American people, that is the question. That a $1 trillion deficit that has already destroyed the US manufacturing and its capacity to defend itself by rapidly building up the US Navy, is that not an emergency, then what is, is also the question, and the role, the duty, of the president of the US in such a situation. The federal appeals court has allowed the DJT Tariffs to remain in place till it goes to the US Supreme Court. Today May 30 the WSJ in a front page article shown here says the one California shipyard could assemble a supply ship in 5 days in 1942. China's independence in the fight against Imperial Japan and the Kwantung Army's adventures, and the independence of Europe in the 1940's depended on this vital US capacity. Is this forgotten? FDR acted step by step by 1938 to restore the US lost capacity at that time, what is the role of the president today? ...

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Ezra Klein says about the contrasting choices offered by Romney-Ryan vs Obama-Biden, that everyone wanted to see a clear choice between different approaches to the issues, and now they have got one. Its almost a repeat of Reagan-Bush vs. Carter-Mondale during a period of high unemployment with Democrats risking underestimating the importance of the careful choice made by Romney today.

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Rep. Paul Ryan got his start in politics in 1983 when he was hired to work for a think tank Empower America. This think tank was formed by Weber, Kirkpatrick, Bennett and Kemp, to preserve Reagan era ideas of focussing on economic growth generated by private investment. This was followed by working as an aide to Senator Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Jack Kemp till his election to Congress in 1996. Kemp was the big idea guy and it was Paul Ryan who delved into the budget details at the time to support Kemp's ideas. Kemp was Republican vice presidential candidate, the same position that Ryan is in today. Ryan represented the area around Janesville, Wisconsin, in the U.S. Congress. He graduated from the University of Miami, Ohio.

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GDP per capita levels in the U.S. expected to return to pre recession levels in 2007 by the end of 2013. Gradual recovery in housing and consumer spending expected in 2013.